From the very first shot in Promising Young Woman, where the camera lingers on the crotches of men gyrating their hips to Charli XCX’s ‘Boys’, I understood immediately what director Emerald Fennell was trying to achieve with her soundscape. She gives us pop songs by women, a touchstone of familiarity as these are songs we know, but more importantly, these are songs that are often dismissed as feminine, vapid songs. The song ‘Boys’ is synonymous with its music video, where Charli XCX attempts to do a gender reversal, and flips the male gaze on its head.
The music video gives us a bevy of men to swoon over, all tantalizingly different (which must be emphasized), holding puppies and wearing pink, highlighting the shifting image of masculinity. This is what Promising Young Woman does as well; instead of the usual image of women dancing sexily in a club, the men are showcased – as much as Cassie is the protagonist in the film, the movie is really about men’s actions, and the system that enables these actions instead of condemning them.
However, despite knowing that the music is more than what it seems, when it came to the scene where Cassie and Ryan goofily sing along to Paris Hilton’s ‘Stars are Blind’, I bought the apparent love story – hook, line and sinker. It is a brilliant move by Fennell, because rom-coms often have sing-alongs or dance scenes, and so, witnessing Ryan’s shameless dancing in a pharmacy as he pledges his love to Cassie with a Paris Hilton song, while moving through a romantic montage of innocent dalliances in bed and constant bouts of glee and laughter between the pair, we think that this is it. Ryan’s the guy for Cassie, he will help her get over her trauma and grief, and she will finally be able to move on.
After all, the song is about a woman who has found a guy who sees the real her, someone who doesn’t treat her like all the other guys do. Cassie believes it too, and we actually hear her humming the song under her breath before Madison confronts her. On the surface, it would seem that Ryan is that guy, but as we evaluate their relationship, we realise that there were plenty of red flags that were just ignored in favour of the possible happy ending.
There are moments where he calls her “asshole” and “bitch”, but since he does this in a playful way, we don’t think anything of it. On their first date, their walk happens to bring her outside his apartment, but he is so apologetic and unassuming that once again, just like Cassie, we let it go and think that it was an overreaction on our part. When he sees her going home with some guy, instead of being worried about her safety, his preoccupation is his ego, and he basically leaves her with the guy.
When she goes to see him about the incident, apologising and wanting a do-over, his preoccupations are more about her never showing him physical affection, and when he asks her “Are you okay?”, it isn’t with a sense of empathy or desire to know what’s troubling her. His body language is distant, defensive, offended by what he viewed as rejection on her part. He only takes her back because he’s convinced himself that he’s a nice guy, and how extremely benevolent of him, a doctor deigning to forgive a mere mortal who works in a coffee shop.
Even after his true colours are revealed, we still don’t want to believe he isn’t the nice guy we so desperately want him to be. His reaction to the video is not shame regarding his actions – oh no, that’s all tossed aside for the “I was a kid” excuse, and worries about how this would impact his reputation. While Cassie was in that cabin, bearing the weight of a man’s violence, I kept expecting Ryan to burst in and come to her aid.
He knew where she was, he was aware of the dangerous situation she was walking into, and yet, it didn’t bother him. This is a woman he proclaimed he was falling in love with, and even in the wake of her disappearance, refused to tell the truth because of what it would cost him. Despite all the red flags, we didn’t want to believe the sobering reality, that just because he’s funny and cute, and knows all the words to a Paris Hilton song, that doesn’t mean he’s a nice guy.
Paris Hilton sings about the gods being crazy and the stars being blind, depicting a world of chaos and disorder, and finding respite in someone who could offer something real. But there is no solace or comfort for Cassie, whose pastel pink world is forever scratched with the violence of red. Ultimately, it is up to her to find some sense of justice for Nina, because everyone else was so willing to walk away or laugh off a young woman’s distress, and in her desire to imprint Nina’s name on the world, she invites destruction into her own. She leaves behind a broken heart, and the tatters of a promising young woman.
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